We live through books; we have adventures in them, we lead alternative lives through them. We expand our memories through them. And that sometimes art can offer us more intense experiences of the world than life itself can.

My sister-in-law is a painter, and I'll say, how long did it take you to paint that painting. She'll say, It took me maybe three days, but it took me all my life to get the skills to paint that painting.

Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever.

Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.

For me, writing historical fiction is all about finding a balance between reading, traveling, looking, imagining, and dreaming.

I've been getting into Nick Drake lately, the folk singer. Sad, gorgeous stuff.

Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience--buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello--become new all over again.